Sympathy for the Landlady
by P.T. Tucker
Summary: Jim doesn't kill her. Not yet. It's all the otter's fault. [Second in the Devil's Curiosity series.] Light MorMor.


**AN:** Some minor MorMor and even more minor one-sided Sheriarty. Warnings for dark humor?

* * *

"If you're here for that dreadful mess of his, it's the other flat. I have to warn you, it's quite horrible. Splattered paint all over the walls and _other_ things in the carpet, if you understand my meaning. I'm not normally one to wish ill fortune on others, but I have to say that otter was right to bite him where it did."

Jim found his eyelids drifting down and then back up again as he blinked at the woman in exaggerated slow motion. He'd had more entertaining first meetings, he was sure of it. He just couldn't _think_ of any at that moment. Wasn't that a turn up?

"Excuse me?" Jim said, scrunching his brows together because that's what people did when they were out of their depth and swimming with the sharks. Genuine confusion. What a strange sensation.

"Oh!" She pressed her hand to her mouth, as if that would reverse the previous flow of words. Normal people were so funny. "Don't mind me, dear. I thought you might have been someone else."

Jim could see Sebastian subtly trying to get his attention out of the corner of his eye – do we kill the old lady, do we not kill the old lady, the usual boring questions. Jim ignored him.

An otter? Why an otter? The biting he could understand, who wouldn't want to sink their teeth into the world's only _consulting detective_? And the paint, well, paint was fun. Blood was funner. Funner wasn't a word, but he'd shot the last person who'd commented on his vernacular in the face, so there was that.

An otter.

 _Things_ in the carpet. Not Jim's things.

Oh, Sherlock. Practically asking for the fire and ashes and horrific, _ugly_ scars. Jim tsked to himself.

"Mycroft sent us," Jim said, a smile curling his lips in what might have been a warning to someone a little less…grandmotherly. "May we come in? I'd love to hear what happened." He could have given a reason – the need to know what sort stains to expect or some similar rubbish - but people did like to gossip.

Jim was no different. He'd lied about his "only" weakness. That's what people do. _Lie_.

She glanced back into her flat and it would have been the perfect opportunity for Sebastian to stab her right in her neck. Blood everywhere. Gasps as she tried to draw in air only for red, red death to rush in instead.

Sebastian didn't stab her. Jim was only a little disappointed.

"I suppose that would be all right." She stepped aside to allow them to pass. "I don't have any tea, I'm afraid. Sherlock gave it to the otter." Mrs. Hudson pursed her lips and went to pull out a bottle of scotch from a nearby cabinet, along with a few glasses. "Go ahead and sit on the sofa, dears." She set the glasses on a coffee table situated between the sofa and a rocking chair.

Lowering himself onto the puce and cream colored sofa, Jim waited until she started pouring their drinks to take the opportunity to examine the room. It was almost enough for him to tell Sebastian to just go ahead and stab her. Who put _that_ on the wall as decoration? _Really_.

"You said something about an otter?" Jim asked, because that was a story worth forgiving the excessive use of floral patterns.

"Oh, someone's gotten it into his silly head that he looks like one. An otter!" She laughed. "Don't tell him I said so, but I do see the resemblance."

Yes, Jim followed that tumblr.

"So, he decided he'd have one around when clients came to see him, to see how they reacted. Goodness knows where he got the poor thing. I told him it wasn't proper to keep wild animals in a flat, but he never listens to me." She pursed her lips.

Jim _couldn't_ imagine why.

He nodded sympathetically.

"Oh, I'm getting off track, aren't I? You see, I went to bring him his afternoon tea – not that I'm his housekeeper, dear – and he wasn't _alone_. He and– well, they were naked and covered in paint and they looked like they hadn't had time to…clean up after themselves before the otter must have gotten loose and got itself into one of the paint buckets. Poor little thing was covered in it. Not to mention everything else. The sofa, the curtains, the desk...you two have quite the job ahead of you."

"I'm sure it's awful," Sebastian replied dryly.

Jim pinched his thigh. Sometime during the tale Sebastian had pulled out his knife and started cleaning his fingernails. Mrs. Hudson hadn't even glanced his way.

Jim was starting to think it might be time to revisit his idea of getting himself his own live-in. She could at least make tea. That was more than Sebastian could accomplish when Jim gave him free range in a £500,000 kitchen.

Not Jim's kitchen.

That one had been a messy date. He'd needed a new suit after.

Jim tuned back in when Mrs. Hudson covered her mouth to dampen a fit of giggles.

"I shouldn't laugh. Poor thing was probably scared half to death. It's just that it kept slipping out of their hands every time they got hold of it, getting more paint on them. They looked so ridiculous chasing that thing around with not even a sock between them! And then M–" Jim leaned forward, but she corrected herself. "And then one of them tripped over one of the other buckets, why they were open I don't know, and it went flying onto the walls and they went flying over the chair and into the fireplace. Head first and bottom out! It was quite the sight, I'll have to say."

Jim was rethinking his decision not to put the flat under constant surveillance. Surely he could find _someone_ to man his empire while he watched it all day.

Maybe he could get big brother to consider a change in careers? He was good with scary meetings and ordering people to kill other people – really all that Jim's job entailed on a day-to-day basis.

"That's about when Sherlock managed to corner it," Mrs. Hudson continued. Her cheeks were flush with scotch. And laughter. But mostly scotch. "I'm sure it didn't mean to nip him there, it's just that you know how those bits dangle and really it was practically in its face."

"What happened next?" Sebastian asked, interested now that violence was involved.

"He let out such a scream! I didn't know a man's voice could get that high. The other one jumped up out of the fireplace then and you'd have thought someone had died with how the blood drained from their face! Though, I'm sure Sherlock wished he had. We thought at first we might have to, you know," she leaned in to whisper, "pull it off him."

Sebastian snorted.

Jim pulled out his mobile and googled "how to care for otters."

"Luckily for him, if there's one thing in my life I've learned, it's how to get rid of _unwanted_ attention. You just have to distract them with something else. They're not terribly smart. I just set my tea tray down on the floor beside it and it came right over."

She sighed before tilting her head back and finishing the last of her glass in one swallow.

Jim's eyebrows shot up. He hadn't even started his yet.

"That was the last of my tea, you know," Mrs. Hudson said, clearly miffed.

Sebastian turned to look at Jim now.

The end of the tale. Time for the villain to show himself. Blood and screaming and _sex_. How else was the hero to shine?

He took a sip from his own glass, and then another. Big brother had good taste. It would be a shame to waste such a gift by knocking it over onto the carpet in the approaching struggle, but he had come here with a purpose.

Decisions, decisions.

"Still," Mrs. Hudson continued, unaware of Jim's murderous visions as he oscillated his head in time with his circling thoughts, "It wasn't as bad as when he bought that hedgehog."

The glass came with him as Jim settled back into the sofa, its place on the table forgotten. He crossed his legs and relaxed his shoulders into the plush of the cushions.

"You don't say?"


End file.
